Our website was hacked several months ago and we had to delete all of the material in it. Since it had been built 12 years ago using html and was very cumbersome to update, we decided to stick with a very basic website that would allow us to easily post new items when we had something we wanted to share. It's nothing special, but thanks in part to my 15 year old son's help, our new website has finally been put together and you can see it at www.2by3games.com. The what's new section has a very short video showing the weather screen in WitW, and it fast forwards through a year of weather. Notice the map covers the entire area of our War in Europe map, but the playable area for WitW 43-45 is the boxed area in the lower right. The weather system is much more sophisticated than the weather system in WitE.

I'm a bit suprised, however, that these new games (WITW series) will be using more the WITE system than the WITPAE one. Considering the success it had and the level of appreciation that still gets by the gallery, i don't understand why WITPAE hasn't been used as the "core" from where to develop this new game. Some of the BTR ideas and a more detailed land combat system (even if i believe the recent "field" modifications - say the DaBabes mods + Michealm's patches - have greatly improved the landwarfare), along with the naval-locistic witpae system, could "easily" make a great game.

ORIGINAL: jaw The reason you can manually change aircraft and not AFVs in WitE is that aircraft do not have fixed TOEs like ground units. The TOEs are designed to keep upgrading AFVs to the latest models so manual change would provide little benefit and AFV production is so much lower than aircraft production that surpluses are less of an issue. Actually to implement manual change for AFVs would require a system even more restrictive than the current one to prevent the kind of abuses seen in SECOND FRONT and WAR IN RUSSIA.

I will agree that manual production could be abused but that is something that should be taken into consideration in how it is implemented, not to mention it is fairly easy to add a game option like "Manual Production ON/OFF" much like Fog of War etc.

So how would adding an option like manual production be easy? And just how would it work? The system already handles the TOEs, which are out of the players hand. With manual production, I, for one, would build nothing but T-34s, Il-2s, whatever the best artillery is. Which would make a mockery of TOEs. And if one has to follow TOEs, then there isn't any point in manual production as the program already takes care of it.

I'm a bit suprised, however, that these new games (WITW series) will be using more the WITE system than the WITPAE one. Considering the success it had and the level of appreciation that still gets by the gallery, i don't understand why WITPAE hasn't been used as the "core" from where to develop this new game. Some of the BTR ideas and a more detailed land combat system (even if i believe the recent "field" modifications - say the DaBabes mods + Michealm's patches - have greatly improved the landwarfare), along with the naval-locistic witpae system, could "easily" make a great game.

1) The WITE engine is newer 2) As far as I understood the long-term idea is to unify WITW and WITE2 into a WIE, thus a unified engine has to be used 3) If the developer want to utilize the IGOUGO system, then the WITPAE engine drops out automatically 4) Perhaps the developers do not see the land combat engine of WITPAE as sufficient enough to model the war in Europe

I'm a bit suprised, however, that these new games (WITW series) will be using more the WITE system than the WITPAE one. Considering the success it had and the level of appreciation that still gets by the gallery, i don't understand why WITPAE hasn't been used as the "core" from where to develop this new game. Some of the BTR ideas and a more detailed land combat system (even if i believe the recent "field" modifications - say the DaBabes mods + Michealm's patches - have greatly improved the landwarfare), along with the naval-locistic witpae system, could "easily" make a great game.

1) The WITE engine is newer 2) As far as I understood the long-term idea is to unify WITW and WITE2 into a WIE, thus a unified engine has to be used 3) If the developer want to utilize the IGOUGO system, then the WITPAE engine drops out automatically 4) Perhaps the developers do not see the land combat engine of WITPAE as sufficient enough to model the war in Europe

The main difference is that the land combat system in WitE is very different from WitPAE.

Why do you need a reply for WitE? Does not make a whole lot of sense in weekly turns. Plus there are no naval actions that require the detail that AE does.

In SP, you can watch the AI do things anyway. Then you also can show combats if you want more details about what went on. I actually perfer it this way. As a long time AE player, 90% of the replay in AE is boring and does not provide much information. Oh look, another one squadren sweep where nothing is there or an ASW attack that could not find the sub

I would much rather be able to chose where to look at things versus having to look at everything whether I cared about it or not. So I am certainly not going to like a game simply because a replay is missing. Other things matter much more than that to me . But that is want makes everyone unigue lol, You care deeply about the replay, and I could care less

I replay you get to see your opponesnts style of play and there could be many combats etc to see. A weeks turn or a day is still a lot of stuff going on. watching the reply in AE again is critical if you think its boring I accept that.

I'm a bit suprised, however, that these new games (WITW series) will be using more the WITE system than the WITPAE one. Considering the success it had and the level of appreciation that still gets by the gallery, i don't understand why WITPAE hasn't been used as the "core" from where to develop this new game. Some of the BTR ideas and a more detailed land combat system (even if i believe the recent "field" modifications - say the DaBabes mods + Michealm's patches - have greatly improved the landwarfare), along with the naval-locistic witpae system, could "easily" make a great game.

Back in the days of [i}Western Front there was a severe experience penalty when an Allied tank unit switched over to the Firefly. Now whether or not the gamer will be allowed to manually swap equipment, is this high penalty still going to exist for WitW?

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4 Has the AI's use of the 'carpet defence' (10 unit deep Soviet carpets) been addressed in WitW? A carpet like that in NW France will simply be ridiculous.

What are they going to carpet with? After Operation Cobra the German divisions were so beaten up that keeping them single-stacked is just going to allow Patton to Hasty-Attack his way across the Rhine.

V-weapon sites and factories are political targets that must be attacked by air or captured or you suffer a victory point hit.

As for carpets, I'm not seeing them in the game at this point, but it's still early. There are many differences between the games rules and between the fronts. More changes are also under consideration depending on how things progress in testing.

Did it take over a week to land and get ashore ? That is seven turns in AE. Even at D-Day after a week, the Allies had captured the invasion hexes. This is what I was refering to as invasions do not need the level of detail that AE requires.

The issue with the replay in AE is after watching obver 1,000 turns of many, many, actions, of which 99% are air raids or sub/Asw attacks, you are not really learning a lot about your opponent on the 999th turn that you were not aware of by turn 100. I'd much rather the dev time spent on game functionality and UI than adding in a replay ability. Especially since the vast majority of players will be playing against the AI.

This looks to be a very interesting game. I have to comment on how excellent it is to see the frequent and informative comments coming from the game designers. And you guy are a LOT more patient with silliness than I could ever be. :)

Just to clear things up, WitW will still be IGOUGO, however, there are significant changes with a unique air phase for resolution of most types of air missions, as well as special sequencing for amphibious invasions that are ordered in one player turn and resolved during the next player's player turn.

Does this mean that the final War in Europe game will be fully WEGO? Or are you going to keep the IGOUGO as in WitE?

WitW and WitE 2.0 will have an IGOUGO ground movement/combat system, and a simultanious execution phase (1 in each player turn) for resolution of the air war. Invasions are ordered during the player's movement phase, but land at the start of the defending player's turn (as do paradrops that are in support of invasions). As for the final War in Europe, assuming we get that far, I would assume it will be just like WitW and WitE but with an even more detailed naval element.

There are some changes with production, but we are not increasing player control in the WitW 43-45 game. We're starting to get more final artwork into the game so hopefully over the next few months we'll be able to start showing some screens.